Mrs. Boyd & Mrs. Rowe

Enjoying their popsicle station on Sports Day!

The Backwards Bean Bag Toss Station!

Noodle Tag was a lot of fun!

Here’s a few more action shots….

We are so lucky to have such a great, cooperative and fun class!

To supplement our “Money and Financial Literacy” unit in math, Division 7 has set up a classroom currency, known as Khouri Kash. The bills range in amounts from 5 cents to 100 cents/one dollar, with a picture of the corresponding Canadian coin on the back, to help with their “real-life” money recognition and recall. 

As a class, we brainstormed different ways that the students can earn, lose, and spend their “Kash”, and for a few weeks now, the students have been doing so in a variety of ways. Some ways they can earn Khouri Kash throughout the day are: helping one another, going above and beyond, really persevering in their work, and doing random acts of kindness. However, they also have to pay Khouri Kash, should they do something or act in a way that goes against our Classroom Charter. The students were also introduced to the concept of “debt”, and what it means to find yourself owing money and not having enough to pay. The class came up with possible “community service” tasks – extra jobs that can be done to help pay off their debt (e.g. helping a friend finish their work instead of having free time, writing a kind letter to another teacher or community member, “deep sweeping” the entire classroom, etc). Happily, none of our Division 7 Classroom Citizens have found themselves in debt yet!

Each week, the “Bank” opens up, and the students need to “balance their chequebook” (i.e. count their Khouri Kash and record the amount they have in cents and dollars). When the Bank is open, they can also exchange their bills, should they wish to trade in five 5-cent bills for one 25-cent bill for example. This helps the students gain familiarity with the value of money and how the bills and coins are connected.

For now, the students have been spending their Khouri Kash on classroom experiences and rewards. For example, they can pay to choose the warm-up game in gym, draw instead of silent-read, or switch desks for a day. In June however, we will be setting up a “classroom store”, where they can also choose to spend their Kash on more tangible rewards and treats. Stay tuned for that!

 

Today we received our Painted Lady Butterflies!  The children were very excited today about our new class “pets”!

 They have started out as larvae in a small container of food.

Over the next few weeks, we will watch the larvae turn into caterpillar, create their chrysalis and emerge shortly after as butterflies!

As a class, the children brainstormed and created some thoughtful rules about how to keep our “pets” safe and how to take turns looking at them.

We will keep you posted on the progress of the larvae’s growth!

UPDATE: May 25, 2021

Our caterpillars have grown…doubling in size!  They are also beginning to make their way up to the top of the container to make their chrysalis. We have noticed some fine web-like strands inside the container too!

Update: May 28

Our caterpillars are getting huge and are now living in a web-filled container.  I wonder if they will create their chrysalis over the weekend?!

Update: May 31

Our little caterpillars are not so little anymore and most have already formed their chrysalis.  Just waiting for the other two before we move them to their larger enclosure net.  The ones in the chrysalis are a “movin and a shakin!”

Update: June 3

Our caterpillars have now all created their chrysalis! We have transferred them to their new home in the net enclosure.  We expect them to be there for about 7-10 days at which time we hope they emerge as Painted Lady butterflies! Stay tuned…

Update: June 8

Some of our butterflies have emerged! We have put some oranges in the enclosure to provide a food source.  The kids are enjoying watching them emerge and spread their wings! We had one that didn’t make it though… feel free to ask your child about it!

Update: June 9

All of our butterflies have emerged! We spent some time today watching the butterflies and recording our observations!

With the beautiful warm weather today we decided to take our reading outside.  We finished our novel “The Wishing Tree”.

This was the school Dance Festival entry…..featuring one special member from Division 7…..can you spot him?

Our kids had a wonderful time this morning exploring outside in our “Mud Kitchen” with Ms. Huckle and Mrs. Taylor-Gibbs.  They were creating and digging and using so much new language….even creating their own new words for their creations.

We have an environment at Stoney Creek that is so rich….we are doing our best to use it in new ways!

Today was officially Mrs. Khouri’s last day in our class.  She has been a wonderful part of our class this term and stepped in to teach with kindness, fun and enthusiasm! We sure will miss her!  Thank you to our students and all the parents for welcoming her and making her feel at home at Stoney Creek! We know it’s not a real goodbye as she’ll surely be back from time to time at Stoney Creek!

We celebrated, had some fun today! We learned a little bit about Down Syndrome and also experienced first-hand the difficulties some people face when they have trouble communicating through speech.  Our kids are amazing and embraced all of the activities with an open mind and thoughtfulness.  Thank you again to Danielle for the crazy sock cookies!

The children engaged in a day of unstructured play on Wednesday.  The idea behind it was to build cooperation and communication skills.  It was to encourage the  kids to create fun and games with one another and to make new connections.

Ms. Khouri reported that after initially talking about cooperation, communication, fair play and inclusion that the children took the ideas to heart and did a wonderful job!  She witnessed many asking others to play or join in on a game.  She noticed when someone was doing something on their own, others would reach out to ask if that is what they wanted to do, or if they’d like to play.  She noticed often big groups of children playing together!  She saw them communicating in many ways including using their newly learned signs and most of all through their laughter!  All in all it was a big success and lots of fun!

Here are a few pictures from the day.  We have a wonderful group of kids in our class and it is nice to see them enjoy one another!

     

Mrs. Kucharski has begun teaching our students some signs to help communicate in new ways. This supports our learning about the Communication Core Competencies and has been fun too! Have your child show you what they’ve learned! Here are the first three letters of the alphabet.